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U.S. Highway 34 is a U.S. Highway that runs across the southern third of Iowa. It begins on a bridge over the Missouri River west of Glenwood. Through southwestern Iowa, the highway is, for the most part, a two-lane rural road with at-grade intersections. Just east of Ottumwa, the road joins the four-lane Iowa 163 for the remainder of its trek through the state. The highway heads to the southeastern part of the state where it crosses the Mississippi River on the Great River Bridge at Burlington. US 34 was one of the original U.S. Highways when the system was created in 1926, though it was preceded by the Blue Grass Route an auto trail that connected Council Bluffs and Burlington. In 1920, it was assigned designated a state highway, and six years later, it was renamed US 34. In 1930, the highway became the first road to be fully paved across the state. By the 1950s, increased traffic and larger automobiles proved the original pavement inadequate, and the highway was straightened and widened to accommodate modern vehicles. Starting in the 1960s, parts of the route were expanded to four lanes; a section of controlled-access highway was built in Burlington and limited-access highway in Glenwood. In the 1990s and 2000s, the highway between Ottumwa and West Burlington was widened to four lanes as part of a project to improve the corridor between Des Moines and Burlington. (Full article...)